LIVERPOOL transfer target Kerim Demirbay maxbet insists he can “handle” being linked with a move to the Premier League giants. German publication BILD have reported that the 25-year-old is an apparent target for Liverpool. Jurgen Klopp sought a creative midfielder in the summer but missed out on Lyon’s Nabil Fekir due to fitness concerns.

But BILD suggest that Liverpool have had scouts to watch the star in the Bundesliga outfit’s recent 3-3 Champions League group stage draw with Lyon and a 4-0 defeat of Stuttgart in the league. Demirbay was linked maxbet with Liverpool last term with his Hoffenheim having faced the Merseyside outfit in the Champions League play-off qualifying round, losing 6-3 on aggregate.

The attacker knows Klopp well having come through the youth ranks during the manager’s time at Borussia Dortmund and is also managed by the same agency as Liverpool duo Naby Keita and Sadio Mane, Arena11 Sports Group. And he is seemingly unfazed by links to Liverpool, declaring to Sky Sport in Germany when asked about the reports of Anfield scouts watching his recent outings: “Of course, I can handle that.”

Demirbay is capable of playing in several midfield roles having taken up a mix of advanced attacking positions and more defensively-disciplined duties in the middle for Julian Nagelsmann’s men this term. maxbet Having only featured seven times after recovering from injury, former Turkish youth international Demirbay has three assists - having set up goals against Liverpool’s title rivals Manchester City and Lyon in Europe.

Shocking stat alert: maxbet the last time Manchester United conceded more than 20 goals after 12 league games was in 1966, a year well known to Bobby Charlton, who laid a wreath on the pitch with Mike Summerbee before this game. Jose Mourinho's worst nightmare is a porous team, a wonky defence, a hefty goals-conceded column. It goes against everything he stands for: stubbornness, compactness, parsimony around your own net.

Mourinho's starting point as a manager is to ban the opposition from scoring. Then you put the other bits on top. But with 21 goals given away in 12 league outings, and a goal difference of minus-one, the apparent rebirth at Juventus in midweek felt like an illusion here. United are a mid-table team primarily because they are too easy to score against.

One clean sheet in a dozen games is the polar opposite of a Mourinho side. We can be sure he is coaching the daylights out of his back-four (and midfielders), maxbet so the problem must be one of quality, of individual ability, after a long phase in which United have failed to sign top-class defenders.

Pairings
Where is their Virgil van Dijk, maxbet their Aymeric Laporte, their Toby Alderweireld? Centre-back pairings - integral to United's success since the early 1990s - have become a game of pick and hope, of guess and rotation. Even with the proviso that City can slash gaps in any team, and bamboozle them with how they move the ball, three more breaches of United's net were in line with a pattern Mourinho has been labouring against all season.